Fontella Bass, ‘Rescue Me’ singer, dead at 72

Soul singer Fontella Bass has died in St. Louis of complications from a recent heart attack, the Associated Press reports. She was 72 years old. Bass was best known for singing and co-writing the 1965 smash “Rescue Me”.

Bass came from a deep family tradition of music– her grandmother was gospel performer Navada Carter, her mother was Martha Bass of the Clara Ward Singers, and her younger brother was the late singer David Peaston (“Two Wrongs (Don’t Make A Right)”). She was married to jazz trumpeter Lester Bowie before he passed in 1999.